09/17/2026
For the new academic year, the Program in Judaic Studies welcomes its new director, Prof. Adam Teller, who has taught at Brown since 2010. Born in London, Prof. Teller studied at Oxford University and completed his graduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in the history of the Jews in eastern Europe. He went on to teach at the University of Haifa in Israel for 15 years before moving to Brown.
Prof. Teller has published widely on the social, economic, religious, and cultural history of Polish-Lithuanian Jewry. His most recent book, Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, was published by Princeton University Press in 2020. It was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in History and won the inaugural Rachel Feldhay Brenner Award in Polish-Jewish Studies, given by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. The book was translated into Hebrew as פליטים ושבויים: המשבר הגדול בעולם היהודי במאה השבע־עשרה and published in 2026.
Prof. Teller was a member of the core academic team that created the exhibition at the award-winning POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. He was also one of the directors of the Pinkassim Project, which identified and scanned more than two hundred Jewish community record books from early modern Europe, now freely accessible through the National Library of Israel.
Looking ahead to his new role, Prof. Teller said:
“I have always believed that all the different Jewish cultures and the ancient—but constantly renewing—civilization that created them are an immensely valuable heritage, not just for Jews but for humanity in general. I am therefore extremely excited to have the opportunity to help future generations of Brown students learn about the contents of this cultural treasure house, in the hope that the experience will enrich their lives just as it has enriched mine. Students should always feel free to stop by—whether to ask a question, talk over an idea, or simply find out more about what we do. I love to chat.”
